Disappearing iPad note markups

GoodReader still exists in the Apple iOS App Store and has had recent updates, as well.

GoodReader

https://apps.apple.com/us/app/goodreader-pdf-editor-viewer/id777310222

It just happened to me also. So frustrating!

Your post made me think of opening the pdf in acrobat instead. Have you tried that?

thanks

Hey Seanyal01,

Thank you for using Apple Support Communities!

We see from your post that you're having trouble with lost notes.

We can help!

Are you able to recover them with these steps?

If you're missing notes on your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch - Apple Support

Cheers!

There are no solutions. Just happened a few hours ago 160 pages into a deposition summary for me. Been looking at every online link ever since. The solution is not to use pencil, or at best ONLY used for note taking in OneNote or some similar software. Not in preview. It’s a gimmick for artists, not for business use. This has been an issue for years and never even acknowledged, much less resolved from everything I’ve seen.

I am also having this issue. It’s extremely frustrating and unacceptable to have blatant user data loss, with no official response. I’m using an 11-inch 3rd gen iPad Pro, on iPadOS 15.2. On two separate occasions, markups made with Apple Pencil on imported PDFs on 2 different notes in Apple Notes have disappeared. I noticed that the animation of the PDF closing shows the edited version, but as the animation finishes, the recent edits disappear. My WiFi is somewhat spotty, maybe the is the issue as this is a iCloud note. I tried to undo, but the action had no effect. I will see if the issue persists with “On my iPad” notes.

Obviously, Apple does not care to prioritize this issue as this has been happening for years. I never received a promised return call I made over a month ago now.

I know it seems like people continue to reply, but I assume the individuals leaving frustrated comments are experiencing this for the first time.

I find Notability as a suitable app—only $8.99/year and we’ll worth it considering it accomplishes my note-taking needs with more features and does what I need Adobe for without having to pay Adobe prices.

This is a user helping user technical support community.

Cognizant and responsible Apple engineering employees and teams NEVER read nor participate in these user to user technical support communitirs.

If you want to keep alerting Apple to this long standing issue, you are encouraged to leave unacknowledged feedback directly to Apple by tapping the Apple product feedback page link below or contact Apple customer support using the Get Support link in the far upper right hand corner of every community support page.

Tap the Apple feedback page link below.

Feedback - iPad - Apple

Good Luck!

I think this may have something to do with it:

I opened the--now blank--PDF file on my MacBook Air using Adobe as I've done many times in the past. When trying to save it, I was only offered the option to "Save As," meaning that Adbe thought this was a brand new document.

However, Adobe did offer to save it using the previous file address. (Odd, I know.) The previous address was: Users/**my name here**/Library/Mobile Documents/iCloud~com~apple~iBooks/Documents/

Well, searching through Finder revealed that the Library folder was gone. And when I clicked through to try and save the now blank PDF, not surprisingly, Finder could not locate the previous location.

Conclusion: Apple completely deleted the folder with the marked-up document in it.

A workaround is to take screenshots of changes before exiting marked up PDFs. The issue is still happening with offline notes.

Same here!!!

Please fix this problem...

For somehow reason, I am using apple pencil to write notes on PDF, and suddenly it scrolled up automatically and all the notes just gone...it's really annoying and hours of work just disappeared.

Dear Apple Support,

Please read this student’s post carefully. This is not an issue of lost notes. Yes, the word notes was used, but that is because the student is adding notes (meaning their thoughts, NOT the confusing name for your app that happens to be called Notes).

I have the same problem. I open a pdf in the Files App, and add a lot of markup (my thoughts) which are gone, poof, the next time I access the file. There are no incremental backups or versions saved anywhere? Really? In 2021? iPads in this regard are utterly unreliable tools for crucial work.

Lastly, I see that the moderator changed the title of the original post - I assume to make it appear to be about the Notes app, which the original post is not.

Thank you for carefully reading and considering our posts.

Same here! I have the same problem with my iPad Air, bought in December 2021. I bet most students have an iPad to be able to take notes on their books and pdfs. However, notes taken on pdf articles all of a sudden disappear. I personally could not care less about video editing, photo taking, ar and all other unnecessary features of iPad. This is a priority feature apple. Please fix it.

Same problem here. My iPad Pro 2018 actually force quit the preview of the .pdf as I hit “Done.”

After marking up like 48 pages.

All of them gone. All of my time wasted.

For a vehicle of productivity, I’m feeling very unproductive this morning.

Apple, you need to fix this. Markups need to be automatically saved or backed up somewhere in real time.

I was “escalated” and spoke with a senior advisor last week and I do believe they are. She seemed to take it quite seriously and ran diagnostics on my iPad. Said I would hear back from her by next Wednesday. She sent a RTA, or something like that, for the issue to be investigated.

It’s an absolute shame we’re in February 2022 and Apple still doesn’t address the actual problem MANY people are dealing with. We are NOT mentioning the disappearance of a Note on the Notes app. We are talking about lost handwritten notes we have taken on the preview opening of a File on iPad. I have lost countless hours of note-taking on PDFs, that have SIMPLY VANISHED after I’m finished. No button clicked by mistake, no ctrl+Z, no finger swipe, absolutely no action taken at all with the aim to erase not even a single comma. I’ve seen people reporting this problem in forums since years ago and no adequate response is ever given. I have just lost all my handwritten notes taken during class on my iPad Pro 2021, bought specifically for this purpose... but the same thing has happened to me some years ago on my MacBook, precisely on Preview.